Sunday, December 13, 2009

I've put in some moderate volume so far this month, and it's been fairly negative in terms of results. Currently playing 95% 100NL, 1% 200NL, and 4% 50NL I'm behind by about $500 cash, but I'm running $950 behind expected value.

What's Expected Value? EV in poker terms is how much of the pot equity is yours if luck didn't factor in. For example, if you're flipping a fair coin for $100 per flip, the EV of heads and tails is equal -- $50 per flip. Half the time you should win, half the time you should lose. SHOULD. It doesn't mean the coin can't flip heads 20 times in a row, just that it's pretty unlikely to happen.

Anyway, I'm not complaining about the EV, it sucks but things tend to even themselves out eventually -- I'm really only behind on my current database in EV by a little bit overall -- meaning I won more than my share for a time.

Let's talk about poker tournaments. Today around 1pm I decided to play the Mini FTOPS event at Full Tilt. It was a $24+2 buy-in but I just burnt some full tilt points because I frankly can't see what else to use them for in the store that I give a poop about.

Obviously I play Small Stakes NL cash games most of my time. Honestly, the opponents for the most part are NOT monkeys anymore. This Mini FTOPS event... can't say the same. Lots of fish without a fold button meaning you have to play for showdowns and can't c-bet and bluff them at all. God how I wish they'd come play at my tables at cash. Last time I played at PartyPoker it was the same thing. The fish may be dying at cash but they're alive and well in tournaments.

I actually ran fairly deep in the FTOPS, and here were my notable arr-ins and stack movement:

Down to 20k after doubling a shortstack with 1k/2k/250 blindspush/fold pre with a good run of cards, took some opens with 3-bets with moderate handsUp to 64k at 1200/2400/300Up to 79k at 1200/2400/300up to 96k at 1200/2400/300 (running over the opponents) -- avg stack 90k with 800ish to goKK < AA preflop, and I'm TOAST. Shit. I somehow knew he had AA and obviously can't fold KK preflop.

lol donkaments. 4 hours for $65 in profit or some shit, got 2 knockout bounties for $4 each woo. Would I do it again on a quiet sunday? Hell yes. The competition is really soft and 1st place in this tourney was $46k.

I really thought I was going to run deep there... was thinking how awesome it would be to win $46k for zero entry fee... *sigh*.

Anyway, that's about it... hope I run better the rest of december to close the year on a high note. :)

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

It's that time of the month again fellers. November was an odd one. I put in high volume for the first few days of the month, then had life get in the way for most of the month, and finished with more volume.

Results wise I started strong, lost it back quickly then hobbled to basically break even running a few hundred behind my expected value -- short sample though of course. Below is the graph from the month including my all-in EV, showdown/nonshowdown winnings and rakeback.

Notably my "red line" is very negative this month, which could be explained by my playing a few thousand 50 NLHE Heads Up hands. I'm not winning as much as I should be without showdown, which means I'm getting run over probably. Ugly ugly line this month.

As you can see, I made a massive $117 for the month, and about $450 including rakeback. Waste O' time considering the daily swings were $500 on a few days but that's the game.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

In poker season, it's customary to discuss results and what happened. I haven't done this for a few years now, but I think its a good time to bring the realities of online poker back to G+P.

First, a brief discussion on the games. I play currently at Full Tilt.

As a challenge to myself, after I cashed out last time (few months ago -- june was it?) I left myself just $500 in the site to play 25NL. Since then I beat on one really bad player at 25NL for $500+, and made about a grand in rakeback, but otherwise the winnings are all poker. No, Full Tilt isn't the partypoker of old, but it's still very beatable even for an old guy like me who can just play in the evenings here and there.

So last month I moved up to 100NL full time and took a few shots at 200NL. The results were good, as I won a little over $2100 at 100NL and was down $400 at 200NL (ran bad, bankroll couldn't take a prolonged downswing there). I also made just under $300 in rakeback. It nets me out around $2000 for the month which is a fair amount for my little hobby.

A couple of firsts for me in October: lost $500+ in one hour, won $750+ in one evening.

Mostly I play 4 tables at a time, which seems like a lot if you're a newbie but isn't really. Last night I decided to crank that up a bit and played 8 tables -- and played pretty well. I might keep trying that out but I'm going to have to buy a bigger monitor though if I go any higher (8 tables on one 24" monitor tiled look pretty small).

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Yeah, it's not smart to post about results before the month ends for a reason! I know variance is lurking. I know it's coming to get me. I know my staying tilt-free work will eventually be tested... and I thought it was last night...

So I open 4 tables as usual, 2 of 200NL and 2 of 100NL. I win some, I lose some but generally I'm pretty close to even for the night. The tables seem good, I'm running below expectation sadly but I still keep playing...

Then the girlfriend comes in and starts talking to me. I'm in poker mode and it's damn hard to concentrate on both as I know well so I'm half listening and then notice the topic is about girls farting as they run. Obviously I don't want to hear about this, I especially don't want to talk about it while I'm playing some relatively serious stakes related to my bankroll. I say "I don't want to hear about it, you know better than to talk to me as I'm playing. Go! I'll chat with you when I take a break".

I knew she cursed my session with talking of girl farts... there was nothing I could do at this point but hold on for the stinky smell of variance. I got coolered by the donk on my left... he played QTo for 15BB preflop against my JJ and obviously the board ran out QQ2Qx ... shit. I 4-bet/folded a few times... uh oh... is that tilt? SHIT! Girls farting while they ran... WHY DO I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT WHILE PLAYING POKER?

I drop a buy-in in a coinflip preflop, I drop another.... I'm stuck $400. I take a break to avoid tilt. Then I come back feeling good... oh, I lose another flip at 200NL, I'm stuck over $600 now.

I drop my bad 100NL games and open a few more 200NL deep ante tables. These are action tables, and If I'm going to lose $600 it might as well be something easier to say like $1k... c'mon, buckle down and dig out... Let's salvage October's awesome month!

I cooler a guy at 200NL with AK on a KKx board -- he had K8. So now I'm sitting deep too. I win some more small ($50-100ish) pots... I'm only $300 behind now... and then this hand happens.

Monday, October 26, 2009

I'll be the first to admit I'm running well in October. In not a lot of hours I am up over $2k this month playing 100NL in not a lot of hours. I sincerely hope it continues as I'm truly crushing games right now (and running 300'ish over all-in EV) but I'm a realist. I'm having a good streak and that somewhat balances the 50k hands of bad play/variance I had in late summer -- not that the past reflects the future in poker or anything obviously.

Anyway, yesterday I came across a couple of seemingly good deep+ante 200NL games and decided to take a shot. You know, it's a strange feeling for a micro/small stakes player to be playing in a game where there are stacks greater than my monthly mortgage payment. No, I don't think 200NL is a lot of money to be playing for but if I could beat this level consistently (and taking into account that winnings are tax free + rakeback) I would be making nearly the money in my spare time that I do at my full time job/business. No, I'm not planning to play poker for a living ... no freaking way.

So, wish me luck in continuing to run well as I make the jump to 200NL. I'll post an october graph when the month finishes :)

Monday, October 19, 2009

Well, as you know I'm pretty much hooped in the golf department due to crap weather -- might squeeze in a round though still who knows? So it's officially poker season for me. I haven't really set goals for poker in the last couple years but I might set some financial goals this season... unsure.

My Poker History Revisited

I've gone over this before, but I've never deposited more than my first $100 into online poker. Maybe I ran well at first but after running $50 into $250 and then to $0 I bought Small Stakes Hold'em and beat the game on my next $50 ever since. Yes, I took advantage of various site bonuses and rake back deals where possible -- you'd be stupid not to. I don't have accurate cashout records but my best guess is I've cashed out somewhere near $10,000 at the game. Obviously I play low stakes and obviously I keep cashing out what I win after it builds again.

My last two cashouts were in December 08 and April 09 and those were $3000 total. I left myself a whopping $500 in the account on April 30th to goof around with since I needed to focus on some other things. Since then I've had a major break even stretch (50k+ hands), ran bad, played bad, ran good, played good. It's been a trip. The only benefit to playing break-even poker is rake back still pays out. When your bankroll is starting at $500 again, it makes a HUGE difference.

From May to September (5 months) I've received $750 in rake back. If you want a rakeback deal at your normal site, email me at justtoast -at- gmail -dot- com and I'll hook you up with a reputable source. Don't sign up without it.

Anyway, since that point I've run the roll up through 0.10/0.25NL, 0.25/0.5NL (briefly) and now play at 0.50/1 NL again and am nearly playing $1/$2 (all 6-max). Again, I'm not sure how far I'll go with this before I cash some out again, but I feel a lot more confident that I'm playing well these days.

I don't PLAN on playing tournaments but once in a while it seems like a good deal. I still hate poker tournaments for the most part, but I guess winning a big one would change my mind on that. I think theres still a tonne of bad players there versus the 6-max games which are noticeably tougher except for Friday/Saturdays (which I'm rarely around to play anyway).

Im not really certain if I should post actual bankroll info here, as some people actually know who I am. I guess if I were playing high stakes I might get some envy/bullshit in real life but I doubt most people I know care about a few thousand bucks. So, I suppose I'll show the graphs at some point. If I ever play $200/$400 they'll know I made it anyway since I'll stop driving my 10 year old car before I put that sort of glimmer in play haha (not happening).

Back when I have something interesting to post about :) Perhaps more archery?

Friday, October 16, 2009

Looks like my 2009 summer of golf is in the books. This year was... different. Replacing my driver (which caved) with my new Nike Dymo w/ Fujikura X shaft definitely improved my driving but I felt less efficient with the irons all year. I putted reasonably well and chipping was off and on. I think I'll replace the irons in the next season -- I'll go to something a bit easier to hit than my beautiful blades. We'll see.

My handicap hovered between 3 and 4 all season... not great compared to my past streaks.

I was truly awful on the niagara golf tour this year. I barely made the thing in qualifying, and only really had two OK rounds, one at St. Catharines G&CC and one at Lockness Links -- I believe it was 78 both rounds or something like that. The rest of the time I played like it didn't matter. I guess I didn't really feel the competitive nature of the golf on that tour... seemed like I didn't care all that much? Not sure why that is but I just wasn't into it. I didn't like the slow rounds (actually I ran good in the luck dept there compared to others) and the events taking up entire Sundays to play. I also don't like that speeding up play at all costs (including booting players who are slow) isn't #1 priority. I will not commit to it for next season yet.

At the club I placed 5th (I think) in the Club Championship and that's not too bad. It's not a replication of my fine T2 finish last year but c'est la vie.

I did win my 2nd Langley Cup beating a crew of tough bastards -- not sure how I pulled that one off. Grinding... I made two putts that stood out to represent my Langley tourney this year. One against Matt where I had a bad #5 (played the 9's reversed I believe) and still grinded out a 12 footer for bogey and the one against Harry where I made an uphill 10 footer for par on #18 to send the match into overtime. It's nice to know that when the times get tough I can make it happen.

Overall, I improved my game in some ways and in doing so hurt other parts of the game. I guess that's the nature of golf, perfection being nearly unattainable.

If I do get out (aside from Orlando for a biz trip/golf in November) it will be purely for fun and exercise since the greens are punched and sand covered now.

And so G+P switches gears for another season back to primarily Poker games... I'll start putting up some information on that shortly.

Monday, September 28, 2009

So, yes I've been playing golf a bit still. After I limped over the finish line in the Langley Cup to get some new crystal I bought a new house, moved into the house, and rented the old house. That's a lot of stuff to do for someone as lazy as I am in a short timespan.

Since I've either been working on the house (still moving crap in or putting crap away or throwing crap out) I've had very little time for the card playing but when I have played it has gone well. My 'roll is respectable again and I'm playing 100NL or 50 when a particularly good game is on. That's not shabby.

On the golf course I've shot 77 for my last 3 rounds in a row. I start off bad, get it back to OK and finish at 77 like its my job to. Yesterday I was 5 over after 5 including one par and one double (3-putt). Tilted I told Matt and Terry that I'm done after 9 if I don't make one birdie in the next 4 or finish the 9 at +5. Naturally I parred thru 9, kept playing, made two birdies and two bogeys on the back and shot yet another 77.

77's do not do wonders for my handicap. I'm a solid solid 4 right now and its just hovering there. No way I'll be a two by year end, not that it was my goal but it's always nice to play well to finish the season... like Matt's doing. He goes from shooting 80's and 90 to a 73 yesterday in about 3 weeks. That's gross.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling post but I'm just too busy with business and the house stuff... hope you can stick around and maybe i'll post more archery pictures if I can't come up with something smart to say :P

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

After watching the Canadian Tour pros tear up my home course (which held up nicely mind you -- 11 under ain't bad) we got to play it in tour conditions with long rough and fast greens yesterday. Harry had been bugging me to play the Langley Cup final match which I had been delaying for a combination of reasons (I wasn't playing well for a big one) but was well within the time frame allowed. Fortunately with a stellar +2 on my first round at Westmount this week I thought my game was reasonable enough to give it a go. Plus, I wanted him to stop bugging me about it :)

I do love the match play tourneys, they fit me better than stroke tourneys it seems. I'm not a "naturally good" golfer -- particularly this year, ugh -- but my mental game is pretty good and I think that's where I make up a lot of the holes in match play.

That said, Harry and I decided to play an epic Langley Cup final on the course in its top condition. Without getting into the *snooze* level of detail that some others might, the match went like this:

So here I am on 17 one down. I miss my par putt after my chip from deep rough, Harry makes his bogey and I have a 3 footer to keep the match going. Fortunately that goes in.

18 I hit a drive right down the bunkerline right and end up with a tough lie, Harry punches from trees up right of the green and I hack it out to 5 yards short of the green. I chip to 8 feet, he chips to 12ish and just misses his putt to win. I make my 8 footer and we're Square thru 18.

So we decide to walk back to 18 and play it again. I hit my drive left over the trees onto #1 and ends up in the rough. Harry's in perfect position. I hit a sick shot out of the rough, over trees, over the bunker and it finishes like 8 feet away. Truly a magic shot. Harry then hits his right beside mine -- I give him credit he was grinding like mad. I lip out my putt and he does the same... was really crazy.

After walking back to 18 again we're told to use 1 instead. I hit driver as usual down the middle and Harry hits an iron. He hits the 2nd to the middle of the green about 25 feet away and I try and go for the kill with a 60 degree wedge. Unfortunately I leave mine in the long rough short sided with little green to work with. Harry's away and hits his putt 3-4 feet past the hole. My chip lands perfectly, rolls perfectly and I prepare my tiger fist pump but alas no, it lips out. We're laughing about that as it would have been a sick way to win and Harry lines up his uphill put -- and pushes it. I obviously take advantage and make my 2 footer to win my 2nd Langley Cup.

That's sort of a messed up way to win it -- would have been way nicer to drain the chip or my putt on 18 #2, but still it was a great and final-worthy round. This Langley Cup was undoubtedly the toughest field I've had to play through and I'm pretty happy to eek out the win.

Nice job Harry, hell of a tournament. You surprised a lot of people this season.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

As I mentioned in a post previously, Matt and I for a time spent our poker time taking money from a certain truly awful fish. The fish played like 95% of hands, 2% for a raise and if he bet big post flop he had 2 pair or better but otherwise would call down with air and fold the river unimproved. We knew this guy was awful, and he contributed greatly to our bankroll building -- better than rakeback!

Today I looked up the guy's overall stats. What I saw truly is awe-inspiring.

Here, without giving up the fish's alias since he is oh so profitable (particularly for Matt who refuses to play if the fish isn't -- I moved up thankfully) is the chart of his donations.

Now losing $15k is not in itself a big deal in poker. Lots of players lose that a lot faster than this guy. What makes this particular bad player amazing is his dedication to his bad-poker craft. That's 15k of real dollars over 5 months in 41k hands at micro limit poker.

If you're a crafty little micro player, you'll figure out who this guy is but he's already got a list of regs who chase him (obviously) so get in line.

The funny thing is I don't think he's a compulsive gambler since he never moved up to chase losses or played higher, he's just bad at the game and doesn't seem to mind dumping money into the poker economy. We need more fish like this guy these days. I'm so sick of the reg's.

I'm guessing the fish in question is old, fairly well off, retired (thus bored) and crabby about his bad luck to anyone who will listen. What do you think?

I win the main pot $150 with my quadsBB wins the side pot with J9 offsuit (top full house)MP wins the donkey of the year award with the Ace high flush

So, yeah, poker's going OK for me.

Saturday morning I played the semi-final Langley Cup match against Gary. This must be the worst draw in the history of the game, because playing Andy, then Matt, then Gary is BRUTAL as they're all REALLY GOOD match players. Anyway, I lipped a 2 footer to bogey (and lose) the first hole but parred my way around the rest of the course until Gary was toast 5&4. I didn't play exceptionally well just kept the ball in play. Naturally I went double-bogey-double to finish and shoot 78 but I got my win which is what mattered.

Sunday at Lochness Links for the Mens Tour event... ugh, it was unbelievably hot on Sunday afternoon. I sweated my bag off but walked anyway (I don't like playing from a cart) and the wind kept it somewhat reasonable. I continued the decent ball striking from Saturday but didn't do much around the greens. Shot a 78 leaving a few shots on the course, but I felt that was a pretty good score. Little did I know every other hacker in the tour would have a good day as well plus they did some funky thing with the numbers so I actually fell a few spots in the standings somehow which was lame. Last event is in 2 weeks at Whirlpool which is a good course, we'll see if I can pull myself up a bit. It really doesn't matter to me though since I've played like ass on the tour this year.

Harry reports in that he beat the living daylights out of Brian B in the Langley on his side of the draw yesterday, so it should be a fun match.

Monday, August 10, 2009

After running bad and playing bad for about a month I seem to have sorted stuff out mainly in the poker department. That's positive for now but we'll see if it lasts. It seems to be forever since I had an 'easy' session but I'll run good eventually, damnit.

4years over at The Great Chillout whipped up a solid remix of Poker Face for all you card-nerds out there. He's a guy who cashed his 401k for a bankroll and has successfully left the day job to pursue poker as a living in So-Cal. Pretty sick.

Golf this weekend was pretty uninteresting. Shot an "easy" 75 on Saturday at the usual club, but Sunday was a 'corporate' tournament with a client at Peninsula Lakes. Now, I don't mind Pen Lakes as a course, it's pretty good and well manicured but I never ever score well. The round was slow with hackers abounding and I was something like 6 over when the horn blew on the 16th hole due to a monster storm coming in. I got out of there just in time to avoid getting drenched and was happy to be 'done' my shortened round :)

Matt continues to complain via twitter posts about his BC trip. So far it's been too cold, Royal Colwood was mediocre and it's cold and drizzling at Bear Mountain. In other reports, it's very pretty and the food is good. He also looks forward to meeting Dick Zokol and playing his ultra-private course.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

I haven't exactly been playing that well this year. I'm about a solid 4 handicap right now so I shoot something between 75-82 on a pretty consistent basis.

At our club, the Championship is a pretty cool event. They naturally have flights of golfers like all clubs do and we the lower handicappers have the 'open' flight in which to do battle. We also have a few really good players in Open Flight so it's nearly always competitive. That said, the same guy has won it the last 3 years (I think) and he's awfully good and consistent. Mike is a level above in terms of his play, truly. So effectively one of us 'low' handicappers has to play his ass off to beat this guy.

We play the Championship as a 3-round event over a long weekend, and we get lots of players out to play typically. It's a great event, very well supported and very fun. It's not often hackers like myself have people watching us play but people do follow the open flight in this tourney and coming in to the 18th on the final day in front of what seemed like 100+ people is certainly an experience.

Round 1 I started off badly getting to +4 thru 5 but held on to finish 40, then had an OK back nine to shoot 38 total 78. This had me in T2 position -- it was a tough day for the field except for Mike of course who shot 72. The pins were sick today, absolutely tough and it proved to be a struggle to get down in 2 putts most of the day.

Round 2 I played with Matty and Mike, again starting off badly on the front shooting a 42 but got it back a bit with a 37 back nine for a 79. This left me in T4th, way behind Mike but within 5 of second and 1 ahead of Matt :) We got poured on for at least half the round, totally soaked.

Round 3 I again played with Matt and Jamie K. in the 2nd to last group of the event. I AGAIN struggled on the front nine with a 43 (UGH!) and could only manage a 39 on the back to shoot 82. The pins were pretty tough and the wind was insanely tough. It seemed like every hole was playing directly into a 2-club wind or 2-club cross wind. Insane!

All in all, I played my usual lackluster (this year) game, made very few birdies, fewer putts and struck the ball OK. It was quite unimpressive but good enough for 5th spot alone for the Championship.

As for our usual crew, Matt finished one back of me and Harry shot a very respectable 77 on his final day -- he JUST squeezed inside the cut to make the last day as well which is pretty cool. It's good to have the three of us all making the cut for once. Harry was 3rd lowest score on the final day which is very solid considering the caliber of other players and conditions.

Well that's about it. Again I just beat the other 2 amigos in the clubs but none of us challenged to win it this year. This really is a special golf tournament. I really hope one year I can pull it all together and win it -- it would mean a lot to put my name up on the board with 100+ years of other champions.

Friday, July 31, 2009

It's funny, I've played poker now for a long time -- have read every well reviewed book, I read the forums, I read everything when it comes to poker. For reasons discussed a few times over the years in my blog, I've never moved up into mid stakes but always keep cashing out and staying at the low limits.

Obviously the game has become more difficult to beat since UIGEA came in. I've still beaten it handily but these ain't the days of Party Poker's glory anymore. The opponents were starting to get better even at the lower stakes, lots of TAG's (though bad still, they were tight). You know, it's kind hard to switch gears between playing a pot with a monkey and one who is actually thinking about the game. I'm finding it difficult to give the 'right' amount of credit to people's thinking at these limits.

For example, if I raise AQ OOP and the flop is Q72, against an awful calling station I'll try and extract 3 streets of value with my TPTK. However, if a reasonably thinking player calls my flop c-bet, i have to give him SOME credit for having a hand, and have to wonder if betting the next two streets has value for me since what will he call with that I beat? Weaker queen... what else?

Anyway, enough of the bs strategy stuff, the point is I'm having some trouble these days and a lot of it is, in my opinion, a form of tilt. Yes, I'm stacking the bad players like crazy as normal, yes I'm stealing from the TAG's a bit, but about 3 times a session I do something really, really stupid. Usually it costs me a stack.

This month I've broke even... to make up for my stupid plays I've had to focus on really extracting value from good/great hands when I have the opportunity and as such I believe I'm improving THAT aspect of my game. I'm improving but my 'leaks' are costing me all of that profit.

So, I consider myself in training now. Breaking even / losing is a pretty HUGE thing for me at this game and has motivated me to really work harder at it. It's frustrating to know what not to do and do it anyway.

In one of my next posts, I'll be reviewing my month of July poker results and what I'm doing in order to improve them. It's been a long, rough month.

Monday, July 27, 2009

The week before last I taught Matt how to play Chinese over lunch. Chinese is a pretty simple very luck-prone game where you split 13 cards into 3 poker hands, 5 in the back, 5 in the middle and 3 to the front. It's a game played for points and not chips which is nice over lunch naturally. There's also zero bluffing. Anyway, we've played two sessions of Chinese and I can honestly say it's a really fun game. I'm slightly ahead on the overall but we play for peanuts anyway. :) I did have Matt on tilt on Friday though as I cleaned his clock, he was ranting and I was laughing hysterically. The other 19th hole regulars who play a bastardized version of Gin would have thought us crazy, had they been in their usual seats.

Saturday I went to the golf course hoping to play OK and figure out whatever is wrong with my game in time for my Langley Cup match vs. Matt. I shot a 79, it wasn't pretty and I made almost no putts at all. That's not good.

The funniest part about this round happened on the 15th hole (it was just Harry and I and we played the back 9 first). I hit my drive as usual and start walking down the fairway when I hear flapping and something feels odd with my right foot. I look down and lo and behold the sole of my old golf shoes has started to come right off. It didn't take long for that to come all the way off and so there I am walking around in just the leather/plastic boot of the shoes with no sole and only a stub of sole on my heel from a few spikes that decided to stay attached. It was... messed up. See, my 'new' golf shoes are in for replacement by Nike due to them leaking already (1 year old, 2 year warranty). I don't know when I'm getting those back so I was using my old shoes... well, not anymore I guess.

I ended up purchasing a pair of these (above), the new Nike TW 2009's for a nice discount -- love me a discount :)

So Sunday I'm to play Matt for the Langley Cup 2nd round. That's a crap draw for both of us as we're usually pretty competitive in this tournament but whatever, luck is luck.

So off we go (back nine first) and early on I get myself two down -- neither of us are playing especially well though! I got back to even eventually and held it by making a ridiculous pitch shot on #17 from on top of the hill, crappy lie, under some trees and over a bunker -- the shot actually checked, imagine that. Eventually I get to 1 up after 9.

I dropped a shot on 1 after heroically punching a shot thru and under large trees and skipping it over the green 150 yards away then failing to make my putt after a great pitch shot. We basically traded bad holes for the rest of the round -- poo flinging. I birdie #6 to go 2 up and #7 I missed the green to the left left and my chip came up short. My par putt missed as well leaving me 3 feet uphill but Matt's birdie putt came up 3+ feet short as well. He missed his par putt and said "pick it up" in a moment of, well... probably tilt. I picked that coin up fast as fast could be and took a 2 up dormie lead to #8 where I get a stroke -- the match is basically history given #8 is easy.

Well, I seem to have a knack of making easy things hard. My 3rd shot on #8 is just a wedge from 100yds to a front pin. My wedge dug right under that damn ball and I took a lot more turf than ball on that stroke. It came up just into the fairway on the far side of the creek. My pitch came up on the fringe of the green and I miss the par putt. Meanwhile Matt hits his 2nd over near the green and hits a great pitch shot about 12 feet past. Naturally he makes that so the match is STILL going.

I hit my drive long up the middle on #9 and hit a 4i to 15 feet from 195, nice swings both of them. Matt got into some trouble on the left and had 250 in with a tree near his follow thru. He couldn't squeeze out a birdie and I took the match.

All in all, it was some ugly golf. It's too bad neither of us played well, but such is golf. Here's a graphic created to visually describe how our match went:

Monday, July 20, 2009

Further to my last post, Phil Ivey, the best 'known' poker player in the world today did indeed make the November 9 at the WSOP. That's pretty sick.

This weekend in golf was better. I did fix my golf swing a bit by changing my setup position. Legs are more bent, body less upright so i've opened up more space between my arms and body. My ball striking as a result has been excellent though my short game is a bit sketchy. I fired a 76 at the club this weekend, not great but not bad given I hit a lot of greens and missed a lot of up and downs/putts in general. Lots of lips.

Sunday was the Twenty Valley tournament. Well, that went about as well as I thought it would. I HATE that golf course, it just sets up wrong for my game and has some stupid holes. After parring the first two easily I hit a driver slightly right down the 3rd, OB of course. My 2nd attempt went left (the natural result of being afraid to hit another OB) and near some trees. My 4th shot was a punch around those trees to the other side of the creek but that ran thru the fairway, thru the 5 yards of rough and OB again. RELOAD, my next attempt at this actually worked and I pitched on, missed the putt and made a 9 on the par 4. I made a birdie on the next hole, a crapload of pars, and basically was 6 over after 9 (5 from that one hole alone). The back nine I played fine too ( good ball striking helps ) but made a few stupid 3-putts along with missing some up and ins to shoot 83. Oh how I hate that stupid golf course. It's like playing #16 at my club over and over and over again, and i fucking hate #16 at my golf course as I've probably mentioned before.

Poker has still been meh. I've identified some leaks but am still overall running fairly bad. I'm not really losing though, just sort of treading water and paying Full Tilt a mortgage payment worth of rake every month. ;)

Kudos to Harry for surviving his 3.5 week Greek Islands vacation, that had to be ROUGH. He came back with a decent 79 yesterday as well on little sleep, so I seriously have to give him props there.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I'm so sick of watching unknowns with hardly any poker experience win the WSOP Main Event. I mean, yes, it's a donkament but it would be nice to see the most skilled players (pros) win the damn thing for once. It's a skill game after all.

So, I'm absolutely psyched that Phil Ivey is running deep this year, still in with 64 to go. Antonio Esfandiari is also still there. I really like his game from watching High Stakes Poker, the guy is active and not a cash game donkey. Also notable is last year's november 9 chipleader Dennis Phillips. For a donkey of that magnitude (and lets be clear, he WAS a donkey last year (AK v AQ lol)) to run deep TWICE is pretty gross. Joe Sebok, Greenstein's kid is still in too.

So yeah, I'll be rooting for Ivey to take it down but Antonio would be great too. Actually Dennis Phillips would probably be best for the game overall as he's the ultimate 'everyman'. And who doesn't want a bunch of amateur donkey 'everymen' populating their poker tables. I know I do!

Monday, July 13, 2009

I don't know what it was about last week. Seriously... something was very wrong with last week and I'm glad its over now. I'll explain.

As my regular readers know (Hi Matt, I think its just you buddy), I've been on a bit of a downswing in poker lately. My stats look pretty good, but I'm losing showdowns like crazy. That started to turn around at the end of last week as I crawled out of my losing/breakeven streak to get into the green but then Friday and Saturday happened. Friday I shed 8, nearly 9 buyins and chased it Saturday night with another 5. This was over a sample of about 3k hands, so no big deal in the overall scheme but damn is it frustrating to lose showdowns this much. I'm just expecting coolers and such. That's not to say I'm playing perfectly, I've done some stupid stuff too but generally those aren't common compared to the old runner runner suckouts. It stinks, I'll stick it out, but yeah, bad week in poker.

On to golf. My golf swing has been a little bit off lately as evidenced by my sweet 84/78 weekend last week. This saturday we only got 9 holes in but I had to be no better than 42 so was glad for the rain to come. Sunday I started on the back nine with a birdie but it went downhill from there as the bogey train came about. After 9 I was 7 over, after 11 I was 9 over. I birdied #3 when my tempo improved due to generally giving up I suppose, and rode that tempo to go even par until #8 and #9 which I bogeyd. It was... ugly. 82. Awful.

Fortunately, I have a tour event next weekend and club championships after that. Also I've got to play Matt in the Langley. None of these I'm looking forward to given how badly I'm swinging at the moment. Perhaps practice on the range is in order to get my tempo smoothed out?

Also last week my Uncle's brother died of cancer. He was a really great guy and left us too early.

So yeah, what a shitty week, nothing worked out. I certainly expect and hope things get better shortly :)

Monday, July 06, 2009

So, I've been running breakeven in poker for the last 10k hands. That's mainly after my bankroll downfall posted about a few weeks ago. So, clearly I'm either doing something VERY wrong now, or I'm just running bad. I actually know the running bad part is true, but the doing something wrong part I THINK might be true. Yeah, I'm a donkey, so what.

The WSOP main event is now running. I have to link to this video of Phil Helmuth doing his usual fanfare entrance. I am pretty entertained by Phil H. entering the circus as Caesar, even he seems a bit embarrassed by it. I give him credit, love the guy or hate the guy he IS something to talk about.

In other news, I was mixed this weekend shooting 84 (Boooooo) and yet another 78. Fortunately I did use that 78 to beat Andy in the Langley cup. Unfortunately I now have to play Matt which is bound to be a bitch since he's a bastard to beat at match play at the best of times. I can't draw well forever I suppose. Should be a good match if we're both playing ok at least.

Oh, and this week we made the trip to St. Thomas again. Last time we got rained out, and this time was no different except we got a few holes in (6 to be exact). They also are VERY sensitive about water on the course, so any chance of rain = instant closure it seems. MENTAL NOTE: Don't drive 2+ hours to St. F'ing Thomas if there is any possible way that it might rain.

Here's a picture (or two) of what appears to be a very beautiful course which is for some reason so clearly evil and cursed that I'll probably never get a round in there.

Monday, June 29, 2009

So, yesterday I attended the wedding of my good friend Harry. I've known his family since I was in nursery school and they're Good People. His new wife Sarah seems awesome, and though normally at G+P we promote strict adherence to the DGM philosophy I'm hopeful that he's chosen well. Congrats again, buddy.

The picture above has the bride and Matt and his lovely wife Jacky pointed out -- she talked him into a fast dance somehow. Matt must have been smoking something as he isn't up for fast dancing for the most part -- nor am I. Harry can certainly cut a rug though, he's got the rhythm.

In other important news, Gin and Tonic might be my new official drink, I had a crapload of them last night and still felt great this morning. Nothing like my foray into vodka+redbull... that wasn't pretty.

As for golf, there wasn't much to say. I played OK and shot 78 and 77 this weekend. Fortunately my handicap is up enough where I'm now getting a shot from Matt which I will certainly press for :). I also played some mostly-drunken Pot Limit Omaha on Saturday night and cleaned up.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I am, evidently. After my last post I have proceeded to run unfathomably bad over the last 2 days online. On Tuesday evening I lost 7 buyins at $50nl while 4-tabling which, I guess, in theory is doable with a bad run in 1k hands. Last night I dropped an additional 5 buyins at 50NL, took a break for 30 minutes to ensure no steam appeared from my ears, moved/sat down at 25NL and proceeded to lose yet another 5 buyins.

You won't see the bad beat stories here, they're typical and not worth re-posting. Yes, I eventually started playing a little tilty but caught it quickly, but for the most part this is legitimately bad luck. Doomswitched or something. It was that damn tournament win, I hate tournaments :P

So, yeah, I'm down just a bit over $700 in 2 days. The micro-bankroll is very seriously injured now. If this continues for another week I will indeed busto my account for the first time in 5 years.

If anyone's looking to make some money, you're ensured to make the nuts against my 2nd nuts at my tables. Not you Matt, you silly bastard, I'll still beat you no matter how bad my cards are.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

This weekend was a quiet one in golf land. Our club had a big member-guest event on which ate the course up Thursday thru Saturday. I had discussed going to play King's Forest with my buddy Dr. K but eventually that plan was nullified so I really had nothing to do on Saturday -- no reason to get up early.

So I did what any poker geek would do with a friday night to burn and no reason to wake up early Saturday, I played cards online. Since my last cashout I moved up into 50NL again and have almost made up the amount of the cashout, which is nice. On this night however nothing went right it seemed, and I played a total of 5 hours of between 3 and 5 tables at a time -- grinding is the word. Whenever I crawled nearly out of my 3 buyin hole i'd fall back in with a beat or a cooler but in the end I finished basically even around 2am. I did however pay over a hundred bucks in rake, of which i'll get back a nice piece -- mcdonald's sort of wages here at G+P folks.

Sunday morning I was feeling good for golf but perhaps was being a bit optimistic, as I actually thought I might start well this time. That didn't happen. I opened 4 over thru 6 with just mundane bullshit bogeys, a couple 3-whacks, the usual sort of thing when I can't pull it together. Then, on #8 I hit my 3rd to 2 feet and made the putt for birdie, #9 i stroked a 3i from 205 to about 15 feet and drained that too. #10 I hit a bad drive, laid up with my 2nd and hit my 3rd to 20 feet behind the pin. I made that one too for a birdie. #11 I hit a beautiful drive but screwed up my 2nd shot leaving it right near the back fringe with a mid-front pin -- NOT an easy putt. I made that one too -- right in the heart. My group members were impressed with my putting to say the least, and as far as I know that 4 birdies in a row streak is my best ever. So I'm back to even on #12 and hit it in the water of course, then take a drop and make the putt for a good bogey. I par #13, bogey #14, bogey #15, bogey #16, par #17 and bogey #18 for 5 over. So, not a HORRIBLE round but should have been a bit better -- the closing holes were garbage.

Matt has a buddy named Casey who became a poker pro a few years ago. I've never actually met the guy but since I hear about his scores in tourneys I sort of follow his progress for fun. He's pretty well known among donkament (that's TOURNAMENT poker) players, not one of the big names but certainly has his share of winnings. Once in a while I'll play a donkament myself but generally I hate them as they take forever and I never cash deep -- but really I've never studied them. Yesterday I finally took down my first 90-man SNG, and once we got down near the bubble it was actually fun. I've realized the overlay of just dead, dead money in low limit tourneys is really something you aren't seeing at cash anymore. NLHE cash games online, at least at Full Tilt are virtual suicide for a bad player now as the ratio of tight aggressive winning players far outnumbers the donkeys. I know, I know most of the players at low limits still stink but at least they have some idea of how to play winning poker now. These aren't the OOOOOOoooHHH PARRTTYY POKER days anymore unfortunately.

Anyway, I might start playing a few more donkaments when I can find a few hours to massacre.

Shouts out to Ryan H., you degenerate gambler you. How could you stay out of action this long? Get your ass on Full Tilt and come play some cards with us.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

This weekend was an odd one. I guess the week was an odd one given my ace. I re-focused on poker a bit which is good and I felt rather good coming into the weekend for golf.

After a little 9 hole round with Matt after work on Friday (he missed a short putt on the last hole for a tie on a dinner-bet -- it was ugly to watch so I didn't feel great about winning the bet that way but the food was solid). I was like 39 or so, nothing good.

Saturday morning started out weird and got weirder. The front nine I had 2 doubles and 2 X's (did not finish the hole for various reasons) which are counted as doubles for handicap reasons. I had no bogeys otherwise just pars. I then opened the back nine with bogey, double to slide to +11 then played the rest of the round 2 under. At least, I think that's how it went. Shot an 81. Just weird, lots of doubles and X's.

Sunday was the day of the mens tour event. I felt pretty good playing my home course for this one and went to the range to warm up a bit before the tee time. Everything was OK there, but unfortunately I opened +2 thru 2 while getting used to the super crazy awesome greens. Fortunately I held off the bogeys the rest of the front and finished in 38.

The back nine opened well with a birdie on 10 followed by ho-hum par on 11 then a 3-putt bogey on 12 from my tee shot landing in the 'wrong spot'. The very tough 13th tee shot confounded me again and I ended up 205 away in the rough with a view of the green on a downhill lie. I hit a screaming 3i that ended up on the left of the green, made the chip and putt. The 14th I hit it safe and made a nice 2-putt for par. The 15th my 2nd shot approaching the par 5 scooted right behind some trees. I hit a great 9i over a massive tree and onto the green and scooted away with a par.

At this point I was holding +2. That's a fair score but not going to win as far as I was concerned so I wanted a birdie on the 15 or 16th to leave some breathing room on the 17th which is a tough par 3. My tee shot on 16 was left. At first I thought it was in the fescue but I found the ball on the side of the hill in reasonable shape. From 240 I hit a 9 iron down as normal...

wait... wtf... GET DOWN... damn ball was drifting... GET THE HELL DOWN... the ball sailed... it bounced off the hard turf and one-hopped into the creek by the right bridge. I was sort of in shock, thinking I played it perfectly and having this happen. I went down to take a look for the ball and we found it had jumped over to the far bank and was right beside a big group of tulips (I think) in the hazard -- very playable but a gamble since the flower plant would surely stop my club right after hitting the ball. I briefly considered taking it out and dropping to the other side but reminded myself that I was not contending if I go up a shot -- gamble it was. My ball shot out right and into the long fescue on a hill. DAMN. From here I hit the ball into the right bunker, then skulled the ball out of the bunker (my recent bunker habit -- needs to be fixed) over the green. Chipped on and made the putt for 7. That hurts, a double. Now i'm really screwed score wise and my mind has gone away ...

#17 I was sort of in shock on the tee, but made a good swing and pulled the ball mightily -- something I had not done in a long time. I ended up near the 2nd tee above the bunker on this par 3. My pitch shot was supposed to run all the way down the hill blind and roll smoothly onto the green, but got caught near the bottom. I could not get up and down and made my 2nd double in a row, annihilating any hopes for my round i worked for.

I played #18 relatively well, made a chip and putt par to shoot 78. Disappointment wasn't the word. Turns out that +2 score would have tied for the win should I have brought it all the way in, and +3 would have been alone in 2nd. +4 would have tied for 3rd... sigh... T7th it is.

I can't say I played all that badly, but all it took was that sailing 9 iron and one bad bounce to turn wine into water. I hope I can play better in the next events and hold it together. So far the Toastinator has really underperformed in tour events and I'm pretty upset about it.

Sounds like Matt had a similar round and flopped as well, beat me by a stroke though. He therefore stays ahead of me in the overall -- we'll have to try and change that.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

I'll start this post off by talking about poker, since it's been so big a part of my life for so long and had an influence on today. Back in the earliest days of my poker playing I used to drive to Seneca Casino, sometimes with Matty and others, sometimes I was there alone. You should have felt the rush the first time I flopped a set playing 2/4 limit... my adrenaline pumped, my hands shook like jello. It was as high as you can feel without chemical help I imagine. Well, since then I've flopped lots of sets, turned lots of boats, rivered lots of backdoor draws. I'm not saying I don't feel the rush anymore, but it isn't what it used to be.

This weekend at golf was fairly typical. Saturday I shot a very reasonable 76 from the tips with my buddy Dr. K visiting, and Sunday I shot a tough 82 finishing the last 5 holes in crazy windy conditions and the rest wasn't much better. The wind was as tough as I can remember -- I would have been happy with 80 so 82 from the tips was... OK this day. So, nothing much interesting from this weekend.

And then... today happened.

I rarely play golf during the week, it's a mixture of being busy, being lazy, and having my usual golf buddies uninterested in 9 holes after work rounds. My girlfriend Lindsay is a total beginner at the game and has decided to play in a league with her co-workers -- they all stink but they like the game and that's what matters. Today, her other players canceled, all of them. She called me up and asked me to play... I didn't really feel drawn to it as the track is lovingly known as "The Dump", a reclaimed former landfill turned into a city owned golf course -- a municipal golf course. I said yes because I want her to play the game and frankly it's not a bad thing for me to get out of the house, even to play a ridiculously short course like this one. It was actually nicer than I remember it 10 years ago when I last played, but it's no big deal overall and doesn't compare to where I normally play.

I was really just out there goofing around, hitting shots the other hackers thought were good. When i stepped onto the 4th tee -- it, through some random re-routing of the course was actually the 12th hole but it was my 4th. The hole was listed at 162 yards, though it looked longer and probably played slightly longer since he green sits slightly elevated from the tees and the tees were set back of their measured distance.

I drew my 6 iron, took a practice swing and hit a very pretty shot straight at the pin. It bounced once on the green then seemingly hit the flag on a bounce. A guy who left the green just seconds before threw his hands in the air and jumped around. I didn't feel a thing.

I asked my group members "did that just go in?". It must have, since the guy was jumping around. I put my arm in the air to acknowledge the jumping guy and he screamed "It's In".

The guy near the green, who I never did meet, continued to jump around in wild excitement with his arms in the air. I felt nothing -- it was like making a birdie -- no big deal. My group members congratulated me and shook my hand. I felt nothing.

I made my first hole in one today at age 30 on a 162 yard hole on a ridiculous little course. It probably isn't even an official hole in one since the course is only 9 holes right now and we only played as many, but I don't really care.

I must either be in shock still or poker's ups and downs took from me some of the ability to feel joy when something truly great happens. My first hole in one was plucked from the hole with a consummate poker face.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

I've always played pretty low stakes at poker. At certain times I've had it in my head that I would like to build the roll and play higher and much higher, but whenever I even conceive of it I like to remind myself that I play poker for fun and the money is just a little side benefit. So, I've played for 5 years now and never played higher than 200NL online.

The truth is I've always thought of poker as something I'm a bit too attached to, and it sort of concerns me.

It's not the love of gambling, I don't get drawn to casino pits and I don't like to lose money.

It's not the love of money -- admittedly I've turned my original $100 in deposits into multiple thousands a few times over but it's never been anything that would change my life.

So, I try and keep my poker playing as an interesting hobby, and the way I do that versus making it a serious life-altering hobby is to keep cashing out. Hell, I've never had more than $5k in my roll at any one time -- that's fiddlesticks in the poker world.

I don't know if I'm wrong for taking the view I do, hell, I probably could have made hundreds of thousands from poker if I had kept growing my bankroll back in the good old days when PartyPoker and the USA were still doing business, but I chose not to dive too deep for fear it would consume me.

Maybe I just love to win, feel I can win here, and that's why I like it? I'm not sure. I even try and stay away from the game once in a while but I always come back. I'm guessing I'll never lose that. As long as it feels good to slaughter a donkey, I'll probably keep giving it a shot.

I played Matt in a series of $10 heads up sit-n-go no-limit hold'em matches last night for the first (and possibly last) time. I know Matt's game quite well now, and I think he's still a bit baffled by my thought patterns -- I'm a bit crazy when I play I guess but it makes sense to *me*. It started out with the usual coolers (AA v QQ preflop) and became an all out war, which is what great, brilliant poker should be. I think the final score was 15 - 7 for me so I definitely got the best of him and was helped by a few suckouts along the way. But the war, the little snipes and big swipes at each other... the bloodletting... that stuff is FUN.

I guess this post won't mean much to anyone but me, but that's what's going on in my head regarding this silly game. Hopefully it was a better read than my last one :)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

So, my #1 fan Matt is complaining I don't update this site enough. I guess he didn't hear enough about how much my golf game sucks on the weekend or this week via MSN.

Let's start with Saturday, well, I sucked. I played like poo and couldn't drive the ball well at all. This led to an 80. I also made no skins (first donation of the year) and lost a $5 match to #1 fan. BOO.

Sunday I went to the club before our tournament at Grand Niagara to hit some balls. I was trying to sort out my driver, well, it didn't work at all. I sprayed it right all day which is opposite my normal flight of high draw, then once in a while hit it left into something when I had adjusted aiming left for the pushes. A very smooth 83 was coming my way for my second tour event. Yes, I suck.

I have figured out that my driver is officially dead, as the damn thing has had a little crack for 2 weeks that is growing. I'm hoping Cobra does the right thing (A DRIVER ISNT SPOSED TO BREAK ITS FACE I DONT CARE IF ITS 5 YEARS OLD) and fixes me up with replacement gear but I won't hold my breath. That means I'll be playing something new this weekend... what will it be?

Kudos to Harry who of the 3 of us didn't completely suck and shot a quite reasonable 79 to tie in 10th spot. Top 10 is pretty good indeed. He's also crushing #1 Fan and I in the standings. Hopefully not for long though.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Exclaimed Harry as he took an ugly poke at the ball this weekend. It's something I had never heard on a golf course before -- farting during swing that is, farting in general in the great outdoors is commonplace among men, obviously.

Yes, yes, I neglected my post last week. There wasn't much to talk about, honestly. After somehow hacking my way into the tour - it was an awful round, honestly - I've been a mix of good and OK on the course. I'm making a few birdies a day, mainly because I can still putt and not because of stellar wedges or anything. There have actually been a lot of mistakes off the tee and in the fairway, so the short game is keeping me sane.

I wish I were playing more interesting golf, but I'm really just grinding it around. This past weekend was 75 from the blues, 77 from the blacks, and 82 from the blacks. The 82 contained 3 doubles and was plain ugly, but I had a decent closing on the back nine and made money with a birdie skin.

Poker wise, not much is up either. Tis the season for golf I guess, because I'm not really drawn to play much of the two card game except when I watch High Stakes Poker on GSN. By the way, if you're bored GSN has all the seasons of HSP on Youtube over m'yaw. I played a bit last night, ran them over like usual though I had a 2 buyin downswing followed by a 3 buyin upswing. One thing I would like to note is that even the microlimit tables on full tilt are way harder than they used to be. I mean, the players aren't sophisticated or anything but they are trying to isolate me (the live one obv.) and do play back at me a bit post-flop. I caught a few guys floating me so i fired pot sized turn bets at them with my usual holding (air) and of course they fold.

Anyway, that's it. I know, boring... I'm bored just writing it but this site needed something posted. OH, Matt beat me twice this weekend, good for him and good for the rest of us who were tired of hearing him complain all day. Now, if only he would stop taking 45 seconds over the golf ball each time we could get a quick round in once in a while.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Well, at least I played golf this weekend. It wasn't by any means good golf, but at least it was golf.

On Saturday morning we skipped out at the wee hour of 7:15 at the club to try and squeek in before Opening Day. It turns out 8 people in total had the same idea, so we hardly saw another soul on the course which was nice. I for the most part played OK, but somehow accumulated 4 double bogeys to shoot a stinky 83 including going double/par/double on the last 3. I was not in a great frame of mind after that finish, but brushed it off fairly easily.

Sunday was the qualifier for the niagara mens tour. This was the first year I agreed to give it a try as my Sundays aren't as work-clogged now. We had quite a bit of representation from our club at the qualifier, and of course Matt is exempt from last year. I went to the range before the round, hit balls, it felt good. I had no reason to think I couldn't get around a reasonable score, but unfortunately that's what happened.

I really can't say I played all that badly. I won't bore you with hole by hole details but my driver (when I used it) was fine, rescue off the tee was good even. My approaches to greens were OK and I hit or barely missed quite a few of them and chipping was fine too. Unfortunately, my putting wasn't working at all. Inside 3 feet I made everything as normal but I missed everything outside of it. Lag putts were awful, 10-15 foot birdie putts often slid 5 feet by, it was ugly.

I had my first ever true 4-putt today and i won't even criticize myself too much over it. The 6th hole on the back nine was playing into a hard right to left wind. My approach left me on the front left of a middle right pin but unfortunately the course designer had designed a two tiered green and some dick put the pin right at the top of the massive ridge. My first putt ran up the crest, slowed, and leaked down and back 15 feet away from the pin. My second putt ran up the elephant's back and slid 5 feet by (couldn't leave it short -- was too easy to have it roll back down), and I missed it... No excuses.

The other funny incident happened on the front nine, I had 70 yards into a green from the fairway and had a 60 degree wedge in my hands. My ball landed 15 feet from the pin on TOP of my playing partners ball, his ball shot all the way off the green past the pin and into the rough (to be placed back, of course) and mine kicked backward and spun back to the front edge leaving a 60 or so foot putt. Naturally, I couldn't make it down in 2. It just wasn't my day on the greens.

I really didn't play that badly, really. Sure I couldn't make putts but I definitely couldn't score -- shot 84 on the par 71 course. So yeah, I shot the wrong sort of score on the wrong day. No excuses, that's golf for ya. I'm pretty happy with my golf swing, but I don't think I'll be using it around that particular tour this year.

Oh, and I think i might have lost $2 to harry on saturday, broke even on bets otherwise.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Annie Duke is kicking butt on the Celebrity Apprentice. She is definitely manipulating everyone but that’s the game, right? Annie should be the winner which I think speaks well for the poker community. I think Joan Rivers is really out of line with her comments, not only about Annie, but the entire poker world. Joan looks like she is losing it and probably will be able to hide her own Easter eggs next year. And by the way Miss Rivers, my last name is Brunson.

Monday, April 27, 2009

This past weekend was supposed to be amazing, sunny and mid to high 20's (Celsius natch) and Saturday was that indeed. Unfortunately it was also windy as hell.

We've noticed a weird new trend on our golf course, the prevailing wind is running fairly randomly. Normally the wind blows in a certain direction here for most of the time, but we're seeing opposites and seemingly random direction to the gusts on different holes. For example, this year on #17, a 222 yard par 3 I've hit 5i and I've hit driver. I was 20 yards short when I hit the driver, and that's crazy.

So, Saturday was beautiful and windy. I actually played OK but could only manage a rather mediocre 82, which was good enough to win me the money (meager as it might be) but not good enough to qualify as something to get out of bed early for.

Sunday was different. I walked outside and there was a chill in the air. Just before the weekend the forecast showed Sunday would be cool and rainy, which is garbage. It turns out the rain came during the evening and night before, but it was still cool and wet out. This was the first week the group of Sunday regulars were playing. Harry was arriving a few minutes late so we took the last tee time, the 3rd of 3.

As the first group went to tee up from the Blue tees (second from the back) I mentioned to Andy that our group, the final one, would be playing the Blacks. Last year in order to cater to all parties we played Blues for much of the year, but that was a compromise made after deciding to play the Blacks -- not my preference but I'm not normally one to rock the boat and someone else caved. That said, this year our regular group of Matt and Harry decided unanimously "we're playing the Blacks" so I spoke up and said so to ensure there would be no surprises with us not playing the group's gambling game of the day. Of course, this was not well taken by all parties, particularly those who think its crazy to play the tips without lots of roll and 80+ degree weather. A couple of people in those groups said, well, nothing to us after the round and I'm sure had a few choice words about it privately -- I guess they're upset that we've splintered the group, but that's life. I don't apologize for wanting to play the harder golf course.

I shot a very respectable 74 on Sunday, only hitting 8 greens and being pretty mediocre with lots of my clubs. Well, at least I can chip and putt ;)

Monday, April 20, 2009

This weekend was one of much golf, and only a bit of poker. Our story begins with a bit of friday night poker where Matt and I tore money from the donkeys' grasp. I realize that donkey hunting isn't very sporting as the really bad ones are just dead, dead money, it feels sort of like cheating somehow that they're so bad and you can read everything they do perfectly and nearly always play them perfectly. I mean, there's one guy that we both beat on relentlessly that is just... wow... like... this guy is down over 100 buyins, many times buying in half-stacks in under 5k hands. ONE HUNDRED... He must think he's got the worst luck in the world, but he's just the worst player.

Our golf round Saturday was nice -- good weather for this area for once. I hacked around a 79 to win the front and the overall on a $5 nassau with Matt (+$5), and Harry quit after 9 due to other obligations. Matt wasn't great but pulled out a sick birdie on the 17th to beat me on the back. The most notable exchange was on the 8th tee, where I looked at his shirtsleeve and noticed the TW logo. "OOoooh a Tiger Woods shirt, snazzy"... he replied with "yep, actually this is the exact shirt that Trevor Immelman won the Masters in last year". I deadpanned "how'd you get it off his back?".

Sunday we played earlier with Scott as an addition to the group. Scott's a pretty good player, and hopefully will join our regular Sunday morning team. I started out on the bogey wagon and never really got off it. Made one easy birdie on 10 when it was playing downwind but otherwise was a little off all day. I have to say the putter has been solid for me so far, even on still-shaggy greens I'm rolling them where I want them. It saved a few strokes for me this weekend for sure. Anyway I shot a very blah 82 but won the nassau entirely.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Well, it's sunny out but still f*cking freezing here in Niagara mostly, but that did not stop Harry and I from attempting to play golf on this long weekend. Matt was out sick for the first time in history so we played without him.

Friday was a universal day off here in Canada so off we went around 9:45am. The wind blew pretty hard, it was fairly cold, and I hacked around a mediocre 81 to beat Harry in our match. +$5 woot. I then settled onto the couch for a few hours of Masters coverage which was solid. Afterward I had a craving for the best pizza this side of NYC (at least, I assume NYC has better pizza -- maybe not!) and went to La Hacienda in Niagara Falls NY around 8:30. What a great day... seriously this is living!

Saturday Harry and I ventured out at 9:30, realizing as we walked to the tee how truly bloody cold it was. I mean, it was COLD and we're Canadians. The wind made it unbearable and Harry was the first to say 'mercy' after the 3rd hole. We played 16,17,18 coming in and got the hell out. Again, the Masters ruled the afternoon. Later that evening when i was out I got a SMS from Matt "Major donkey alert... fyi". I replied that I'll be there shortly. Upon arriving home I logged into full tilt and finally got a seat with a major donkey. It's funny how even small stakes players like us donkey hunt, but it's profitable. Matt beat me in both major hands we played (sucked out both times, and both times I paid off like a donkey -- blah), but fortunately I stacked just about everyone else in the nearby vicinity for a somewhat reasonable profit on the evening playing pretty loose aggro with a few good runs of cards.

Sunday was brunch with the family with the required couple of drinks, then I retired to watch my pick after Saturday's round Cabrera hack his way around the last few holes and still win. Too bad for Kenny Perry to play so badly on the last two to fall into a playoff where he really didn't seem comfortable. After 16 it looked.... ugh... I can't imagine how it feels to have the Masters virtually locked up then butcher the last two like that. It reminds me of Greg Norman a bit.

Good for Cabrera though! Anyone who can win the US Open at Oakmont is a hell of a golfer even if he did whack a tree in the playoff and still win against two guys choking.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Well, it's snowing here, or at least it was snowing and now there's snow on the ground. F MY LIFE. It's April for F sakes. Bloody hell.

This weekend we thought golf wasn't going to be possible, and Saturday was a complete washout but Sunday morning the sun was out and the usual 3 came together for golf. It was late'ish and I had things to do so said I was in for 9 only, so we decided on a $5 a side for 9 holes and if we were quick I said I might squeeze in 18. We weren't quick, but it was a weird 9 holes.

First of all Harry just 'lost' a 5 iron on the 2nd hole. He knew that he played it there only when on the 4th tee he realized it was gone. I know a lot of club chuckers, and Harry isn't one of them. It was weird. Then after playing 6 holes of modestly bad golf, Matt says he has to walk in as he's feeling poorly. That's really weird... really. Anyway, I win both matches with a grinded out 39 and expect to be transferred $10 on Full Tilt any day now.

+$35 in bets+1 beer

On the poker front I played a few long sessions recently with swingy but eventually breakeven results. I'm actually running really bad with getting sucked out on but i've made a few bad plays too when I knew I was beat and couldn't give it up. I played a session where I was up almost 4 buyins in 2 hours, then dropped 6 in 30 minutes, and this is not tilt just a weird run. I had to quit the game even though there were donkeys about as I knew I was on the border of tilt.

Tilt's a funny thing, sometimes you're tilting and don't know it, sometimes you're tilting and DO know it and just can't stop. I've now figured out that my tilt starts in my neck and shoulders when the stress level goes up. I'm getting pretty good at steam control and quitting or sitting out a good game at least for a while is right for me.

Oh, and I'd like to mention a hand I watched on High Stakes Poker yesterday. How i love that show....

Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein are both sitting deep ($460k effective stacks) playing 500/1k blinds. Peter Eastgate opens in late position with AKo to $3,500, Barry Greenstein makes it $15k with AA on the button. Tom Dwan calls in SB with KQs and Eastgate calls.

And... oh... just watch the hand. It starts about 55 seconds into it. Notice in particular what Barry says to Tom Dwan about taking money back and his response.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Saturday I did both of my favorite hobbies in one day. That's good stuff.

In the morning I met Matt & Harry for breakfast again and we went out for 18 in 11 degree (celsius) weather with the sun shining. I held it together most of the round but had a bad streak of 3 bogeys on 15,16,17 to shoot 76 and lose $5 to Matt on the overall. He played well, and is no longer the butt of our jokes (for now). No complaints as it was my 2nd round out.

In poker, I wasn't going to play but Matt had one of his favorite donkeys online and a seat open for me. Naturally I sat and immediately was happy I did. I opened some more tables and we played for 2.5 hours wherein I won about 3.5 buyins. There's just such a monster difference between Saturday night and a Monday night on full tilt. Really ridiculous that so many bad players come out on the weekend.

My hand of the night - Matt opens in early position and covers me, I re-raise with TT in the cutoff, button (half-stack donkey) calls, SB (half stack biggest donkey in the world) calls, Matt re-raises for half a stack. Hmm. Now, normally I fold when he 4-bets without close to the nuts but I couldn't possibly understand why he would 4-bet a hand that crushes me. We have good old fashioned donkey money in the pot, why chase it out with AA or KK? QQ was a possibility I guess as was JJ but all my senses said AK and frankly I was in a gambling mood so I pushed. Both donkeys call, Matt calls and we have a 4 way all-in for about 300bb in the pot. Matt flips KK, I have TT, donkeys have AK and AQ. Hmm, my mistake. Anyway I flop a boat and suck out which is fine retribution against Matt who sucked out twice earlier on me -- once where I had middle two pair vs. top pair (bad kicker) with one to come, and one where I had AQ on a AAx board and he paired his kicker on the river. No tears from me, but I lament my bad luck until I suck out with TT v KK :)

It was a profitable night and a fun day of golf. Should be a fun year.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

No, i'm not talking about the funky get down with the girlfriend mood -- this blog is about golf and poker only you silly.

Today I had a scheduled appointment in Niagara Falls with ye olde accountant, a thin "accountant looking" white guy who does my corporate books. Nice guy. I also made a stop to get my hair cut, knowing full well the irony of getting an actual haircut and a figurative one from Revenue Canada on the same day makes that two in a day. Matt caught on to this. He's good.

As I drove down Victoria Avenue in Niagara Falls it struck me... I have very little to accomplish today beyond my appointments, I have $550 in my pimp ass money clip I just got for my birthday, I have a comfortable sweatshirt in my back seat. Victoria Avenue leads to Casino Niagara once you pass the 420 highway, and that was the direction I was heading.

It's 3pm on a weekday afternoon in the off-tourism season, that's bound to make for a short supply of card games but since I was literally 5 minutes away with the sudden urge to shuffle dirty, semen laden redbird chips and fire value bets at degenerates I parked in the free lot, changed my shirt to poker-mode and in I went.

Upon reaching security, he looked me up and down. This was the first time I didn't reach for my ID. "How old are you, boss?" I rolled my eyes back into my skull trying to come up with my age which had suddenly left me. "30" I stated... he gave a little grin and said "you're in then" and off I went.

Past the grey hairs on their idiot slot machines that pay out poorly, past the crippled wheelchair bound guys sitting at electronic tables with a big dice ball in the middle, past all the people too out of it to figure out they're losing at life simply by being in this wretched old casino playing negative expectation games. I left them in my dust as I cruised down the escalator to the dungeon-like poker room level.

Standing on the rail was one unkept fat guy who had somehow turned off his world of warcraft game. He stood there watching one of the tables on the rail as a mid twenties douche pushed his sad little shortstack pre-flop, got 2 callers and proudly slowrolls Jack Six suited and scoops. After slowrolling he made the "cmere chips" motion with his hands as the dealer pushed the pot just to taunt his opponents. You stay classy, Casino Niagara.

3 tables were running, all 1/2 no limit, all $100 max buyins. One late middle age woman in reasonable clothing sat on a $35 stack surrounded by grubby low-stakes players in dark hoodies with unkept hair and clothing. I wondered if she was enjoying her vacation.

I looked around at the guys that played this lowest of stakes poker game on a weekday afternoon, and recognized at least one from when I first played 2/4 limit at Casino Niagara. Here he was at the same casino, in the same basement poker room. Poor guy. Not everyone can be Durrr I guess.

I didn't even put my name on the list, didn't buy a chip or place a bet. I decided that if this was 1/2 live poker on a thursday afternoon in Niagara, i'll go home and play on the Interweb with a cup of tea instead.

Perhaps it's newfound wisdom one achieves when hitting the magical age of 30 -- your life is what you make of it. This 20 minute side trip shook me out of the urge to play low-stakes B&M casino poker again, at least for now.

Monday, March 23, 2009

This winter in Canada sucked huge, it was cold, it snowed a bunch, it blew. The best thing to happen this winter was that it ended early. And so, with temperatures nearing the balmy 50's for the first time in forever three golf-starved Canadians crawled from our igloos, strapped a carry bag to our backs, and we played some golf.

First off, this past Wednesday our course opened the practice facility sending out an email to proudly announce it. Matt and I made the trek after work, and we played a little par-3 course the pros had setup. 52-58 yard pitch and putt golf is better than no golf at all so of course Matt and I had to gamble on it a bit. We decided to play a game I may indeed be the creator of - golf curling. Basically, if Matt hits one balls close than my closest ball, he gets 1 points. If he hits two balls closer than my closest ball, he gets 2 point. If he hits 3 balls closer than mine, we made it a whammy so he gets 5 points. Points are given a dollar value (in our case, $1 -- ballers I say) and that's the game. Actually, it's a great game and I'll play it again. I beat him by 2 points. More importantly, I got a 'closest to the pin' to put my name on, and won myself a fine box of Noodle golf balls. Matt refused to put his name closest to the pin when he hit a great shot claiming it was wrong to take a prize from a 12 year old kid... he's so nice. Want a sleeve of Noodle's Matty? I'll share. A beer replaced actual payout of our huge wager, and home we went happy to have sort of golfed.

Saturday morning was one like no other in recent memory. The sun was somewhat visible, the ground was dry, and the golf course was open. We arrived at 9:30 for breakfast, a meal fit for kings though Harris believes the omelettes are becoming smaller daily -- my eggs over easy were fine. Afterward the frost cleared and we played some golf. I actually made reasonable contact with the ball all day and though the greens weren't exactly in super shape it was golf, and golf is good. Wager wise Matt and I started out by playing a 5 and 5 -- $5 for the front, $5 for the back in stroke play. Nobody wagers with Harris since he doesn't pay his bets off :) I beat Matt by 3 strokes on the front shooting a very fine 39 so he asked to add some incentive to him shooting 35 on the back to beat me so we made a $5 overall game bet as well. It was clear as his 10th hole tee shot sailed into the houses that this was a poor choice on his part. Matt staggered around the back nine like a guy who hadn't played golf in 6 months, and it was clear on 17 he would lose all bets this day. I, the consummate gentleman said "Want to play 18 double or nothing?". His immediate response was "NO I DONT WANT TO LOSE $30 ON THE GOLF COURSE" but later changed his mind. The idea of shipping me any money at all on full tilt where we pay our bets off was gutwrenching. I stepped up to the 18th tee feeling no pressure playing for the huge money and let one sail down the left side, a perfect shot. Matt climbed onto the tee, swung a gargantuan effort and the ball sailed into the trees left, hitting one. Harry broke out laughing and I couldn't help myself to laugh at him laughing. That ball eventually was lost, I came up 20 yards short of the green on my approach but got a nice wedge up and down with the power of the checkspin. I offered to let Matt out of the double or nothing but he'd have none of it.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Got a comment in that last post about how little i've been updating G+P lately... totally valid criticism I've been neglecting my baby.

Honestly, the amount of golf i've played is nil. None since the end of last season. I have been playing a bit of cards though...

Matt has finally learned to win at poker a bit, only took him 4 years to do it but finally he can crush donks at the microlimits. Naturally I went on a downswing playing NLHE Heads Up online so I did what I do every year it seems, I cashed most of the bankroll out leaving myself but $1,000 with which to play. This provides 2 functions for me... the first is I can say I'm actually making and taking profits from online poker to those who might think I have a gambooling problem (family)... the second is it reduces greatly the limits I can play obviously so I fall back down to the micro/low stakes where I know I'll win money on a somewhat consistent basis. I then went on a downswing at the low limits... it's arguable whether there was bad play in there -- I'm not immune to being a donkey here or there -- I don't think I was playing too badly but ran into a lot of 2nd best hands so took the sad little roll into sadder territory. My great fear was that Matt would run his 'roll up to higher than I've got my 'roll. I came within about a hundred bucks before I turned it around and shot back up. Meanwhile, i don't play all that much these days, maybe 1500 hands a week.

Recently I had a conversation with myself where I'm starting to hate the fact that I keep cashing out my poker money. I've never made a LOT of money at the game but I certainly could stand to play higher stakes than I have. Maybe that's a good thing that I keep it recreational and pay my golf membership with poker money -- it's not the worst thing in the world that your hobbies pay for each other. Still, I feel like i've left some vehicles, vacations, 60" pioneer plasma tv's and associated toys on the table by not playing higher earlier. Obviously the online NLHE games now are far more difficult than they were a few years ago so I probably should have went digging for poker gold back then if I really wanted to make any. That said, I have to believe the B&M games are still soft, they're just awfully slow compared to my 4-tabling online.

I'm debating either getting serious about another poker variant like Pot Limit Omaha or some of the limit games like 2-7 triple draw, stud, stud8, and so on online or starting to play B&M sessions of NLHE cash to see how they run. I can't bring myself to play tournaments seriously for whatever reason... I spose if the buyin were something I cared about I would?

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

So, I joined a golf pool run by a family member of a co-worker. They're a fun bunch out in Calgary. Naturally I know sweet fuck all about most of the lower ranked dudes on the pga so I enlisted Matty B the golf obsessed sweatervest wearer to help with the picks. In return I gave him a 20% freeroll -- fun for the whole family.

The first event was this weekend, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Team "Sweatervests Rule" placed 3rd to last. Well, a bad start but overall we're in 17th place out of 36 teams given the scoring format -- top 50 money list at the end of the year plus payouts for every week. I'll break it down here if anyone cares, but nobody will so i won't :)

On the other hand, poker. Now, I love poker but I never get to play because I'm a workaholic who works a job plus runs a biz with the rest of my spare time leaving me with... well... no spare time. So, to accommodate poker I've decided to stop working the job.

Yep, in today's fantastic economic climate I've decided to go it alone and cast away the shackles of a job. Well, not really I'm expecting to do a bit of contracting for the same company but STILL it's a step in the right direction baby! Expect me to play more poker shortly so I actually have something to write about.... yeah, G+P is boring lately, stfu. :)

My new websites are coming along nicely... no details yet... I'm such a tease but they'll definitely blossom once I gain a bit more time/freedom.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

I'm working on some spiffy new related websites right now ... so yeah i know i've been a little behind updating good old G+P here. The good news is I'm running a bit better now and actually making money online when I find the time to play. The bad news is that I don't often find time to play. ;)

If you're playing cards, good luck at the tables in the meantime. If you're lucky enough to get away and go golfing down south or something where its not freezing like here... I hate you! Jesus it's cold here!

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Contrary to popular belief among the Interweb-dwellers, the man himself states he is NOT "into dudes". Who knew?

I'm going to take the laptop back to the Best Buy where I bought it. Talk to the guy who sold it to me. Explain that the computer is junk. As soon as he says it's working fine, I'll reply with, "No, no Vista sucks and this computer is NOT working fine. Look!" Then I will smash the computer on the ground. stomp on it repeatedly and pull out my mini-sledge hammer to finish the job. Before I do this, though, I want to make sure I can't get in any trouble with the law. I'd suck at jail, dudes would totally make me their bitch and contrary to popular belief I'm really just not into dudes. Especially jail dudes! Meh, I might end up just giving it to Patty after all and go back to XP or even buy a dreaded Mac... I've been a Mac hater forever, but too many people are telling me I need to switch over. We shall see.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

After my cash-out about a month ago I'm back playing a bit of recreational poker. I've been playing the micro limits with Matty as he grinds his way up (between diaper changes) but haven't been taking it seriously and was dropping buy-ins like candy playing wild and running horribly. Oh well, at that level I can afford the candy. After that I played a little 6-man SNG with Matty and took it down and went to a home game at Bernie's place where I walked away reeking of various smokes and a bit lighter in my wallet. Again, fortunately I can afford the candy.

Then, the last two nights I did the unthinkable. I 4-tabled for a bit over an hour for each. I'm playing down at Matty's level to try and start winning again to build up some steam, but I'm still running horribly so losing. I'm losing a tonne on overpairs and making it up with good play otherwise... either I'm running bad or it's no longer profitable to get it in post-flop with an overpair with 100BB against guys at this limit. I can't imagine the overall play has improved THAT much down here? Blah. Anyway, down 3BI in the last 2 days through about 1300 hands. Sigh.

God forbid I actually ever put my own money into online poker to play real limits -- totally taboo for me. I started with 2 $50 deposits back in the day, and I'm still playing on it after cashing out year after year. Fortunately, I still have 38 buyins for this level in my 'roll, so I can afford the candy even if it tastes like ass currently.